[December 02, 2014] |
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ChangeTip Raises $3.5M for Global Social Media P2P and P2B Micropayment Platform Development
ChangeTip,
the popular social media tipping platform, announced today that it has
raised a $3.5 million Seed Round. Bitcoin investment firm Pantera
Capital is leading the round, with participation from Bold Start
Ventures, DCG, CryptoCurrency Partners, 500 Startups, and others. This
latest round of funding will be allocated towards product enhancement,
platform engineering development, and user acquisition.
ChangeTip is a Bitcoin-enabled social media tipping platform by which
users can send any amount of money over 35 different social media
platforms or content showcase channels (including Twitter, YouTube (News - Alert),
Reddit, and GitHub). Users can reward content creators with small
amounts of money by way of a simple online comment or reply, similar to
how one would tip a street musician for an impressive performance or a
waiter for quality service.
Typical tipping events include: people tipping one another for comment
appreciation, or as a gift; people tipping to reward insightful
publications or worthy content marketing material; tipping favorite
musicians, actors, writers or other public figures; tipping songs or
drawings; tipping in place of the "Like" or "Upvote" buttons to give the
action practical meaning; tipping as a way to repay small debts; and
tipping as a way to make small donations to charities and other
non-profit entities.
"The social media phenomenon of 'tipping', or expressing one's
appreciation over the Internet with small monetary or other digital
gifts, is building momentum," said Nick Sullivan, ChangeTip founder and
CEO. "With ChangeTip, a million users can tip $0.01 and the content
creator can collect his $10,000 - an impossibility in a legacy payments
world."
Chief Executive Officer Nick Sullivan is a four time VP of Engineering,
producing million dollar projects for Yahoo!, Wikia, and Krux. Chief
Operating Officer John Q. Smith is a Silicon Valley veteran with two
successful exits, wielding oer 20 years of software engineering and
team building expertise. Each member of the company's four-person core
has worked together on previous projects, indicating strong team
cohesion, and all bring at least ten years' experience in application
development.
Pantera Capital CEO Dan Morehead elaborated, "Tipping is likely to be
Bitcoin's first killer app - seamlessly integrated into social media,
enabling people to send money in a free, fun, instantaneous way without
borders or minimums. This could have a huge impact on Bitcoin adoption.
Years ago I received my first bitcoins free from Gavin Andresen's
Bitcoin Faucet. When we look back in a year's time, there is a good
chance that the majority will have received their first bitcoins free
via ChangeTip."
ChangeTip connects over 50,000 social media or content showcase
accounts. The service facilitates transaction sizes ranging from
$0.00001 up to $100, and since inception, the company's user base has
grown 30% month-over-month. High demand plus ease of use have ignited
its recent viral adoption and use on Reddit and Twitter (News - Alert).
Bitcoin's advantages include global reach, security due to
decentralization, speed, negligible fees, and no minimum transaction
size. Credit cards, SWIFT, ACH, SEPA, and other legacy payments rails
maintain hard fee floors and minimum transaction speeds, limiting the
ability to transfer value optimally to others. At certain price points,
sending money through these rails is too expensive, too slow, or too
inconvenient.
Because of these constraints, tipping over YouTube requires a $0.21 +5%
fee, yet it's becoming increasingly apparent that users are willing to
tip less than minimum fees. If a million viewers wish to tip $0.01 but
not more than $0.22 for a viral video, this revenue is lost for the
content creator.
About ChangeTip
ChangeTip is owned by San Francisco-based ChangeCoin Inc., a Delaware
corporation. ChangeTip allows people to express appreciation or pay
other individuals or organizations via monetary "tips." Tips are sent
natively within the chosen social media platform and allow users to
transact seamlessly in the normal course of their Twitter, Reddit,
YouTube, and other social media interactions. In this way, ChangeTip
represents not only the next level of financial payment infrastructure,
but also the next iteration of the Internet of Value.
Utilizing Bitcoin blockchain technology, the company's platform allows
instant transactions between two parties. The company's product suite
includes the Tip.Me
widget, which allows any content
producer (artist, writer, musician, publication, etc.) to accept tips
via the ChangeTip platform.
*In keeping with American law and financial industry standards, the
ChangeTip service is not available in FATF
"non-cooperative" and other "blacklisted" countries such as
Liberia and Myanmar.
About Pantera Capital
Pantera Capital is an investment firm focused exclusively on Bitcoin and
the companies in the space. Dan Morehead founded the firm in 2003, where
it initially focused on global macro hedge fund investment. Benchmark,
Fortress Investment Group and Ribbit (News - Alert) Capital are shareholders of Pantera
Bitcoin Partners LLC, a subsidiary of Pantera Capital. For more
information, visit www.panteracapital.com
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